The quote database

More than once in my short life I have been struck by the value of the man who is blind to what appears to be a common-sense certainty: he achieves the impossible.

There are persons who possess the keenest perception for the most difficult problems, who are also not fearful of responsibility, and yet in cases of difficulty cannot come to a resolution.

Mere intelligence is still not courage, for we often see the cleverest people devoid of resolution.

War is the province of uncertainty: three-fourths of those things upon which action in War must be calculated, are hidden more or less in the clouds of great uncertainty.

If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything, except my faith.

It’s also about knowing what you know and what you don’t know. It’s about being open to people and ideas.

The point is, every graduate here today has the training and the talent to succeed. But do you have guts to fail?

Perhaps when all is written courageously, I shall have no courage left to publish it.

See that you do nothing like a sheep; but if you do, in this case also the man is lost.

One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time.

Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.

Courage returns as we gaze; when we see what has been, we doubt no more that it can be again.

Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.

If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started.

Life is not a popularity contest. Be brave, take the hill but first, answer the question, “What is my hill?”

But instinct is something which transcends knowledge.

Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.

No one will insist upon your rights while you yourself doubt that you have any.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist

A man must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another.

Courage may be displayed in everyday life as well as in historic fields of action.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better

There is little place in active life for the timid good man.